George F. Will: Pop-Tart terrorist

If this becomes law, it will further empower the kind of relentless improvers and mindless protectors who panic over Pop-Tart pistols and discern terrorism in Hello Kitty bubble guns. Such people in Minnesota will be deciding what behavior – speech, usually – damages a “supportive learning environment.” They will be sniffing out how students’ speech or other behavior has real or perceived – by whom? – effects on the balance of “power” between other students. And school bureaucracies will ponder whether what Sally told Eleanor about Brad’s behavior with Pam after the prom violated Brad’s, or perhaps Pam’s, “reasonable expectation of privacy.”

Government is failing spectacularly at its core functions, such as budgeting and educating. Yet it continues to multiply its peripheral and esoteric responsibilities, tasks that require it to do things for which it has no aptitude, such as thinking and making common-sense judgments. Government nowadays is not just embarrassing, it is – let us not mince words – inappropriate.